As a founder member of Mystery Women in 1997, promoting Crime Fiction has always been my passion.
Following the closure of Mystery Women, a new group was formed on 30th January 2012 promoting crime fiction.
New reviews are posted daily, but to search for earlier reviews please click on the Mystery People link below and select 'reviews' from the welcome page. This will display an alphabetic option for you to find the review you would like to read

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Monday, 30 July 2012

When Jack and Liz Harper learn that they have
inherited a house in Marston Lacy in Shropshire,
Jack is all for selling it unseen, as living in Maryland USA there is little
chance of their being able to inspect it, but Liz is eager to learn all about
the house, and the English ancestors she never knew she had.As a compromise Jack emails his friend
Michael Flint, and asks him if he will leave Oxford and pop up to Shropshire to
have a look at the place, and send him some photographs.

So the
coming weekend Michael books himself into the local pub in Marston Lacy.
Meanwhile not one to let the grass grow under her feet, Liz has contacted a
local antiques dealer to see if she can track down any of the house’s original
furniture, and Michael now has an extra chore to look up antique dealer Nell
West who lives in Marston Lacy, and has located a nineteenth century long-case
clock reputed to have been the property of a lady who lived at the house.

Armed with
his camera Michael visits Charect House which has stood empty for more than a
century and has a sinister reputation.While
he is taking photos of various aspects of the house for Jack, Michael is
conscious of a ticking clock but cannot actually locate the clock.Later Michael meets Nell West and her young
daughter Beth, who is close in age to Ellie, Jack and Liz Harper’s
daughter.It is Beth who hears the ‘Dead
Man’s Knock - has she become the catalyst to awaken the evil in Charect
House?

Utterly fascinating,
the past history of Charect House is slowly revealed through some old diaries
discovered during the house renovations and through another unexpected
source.But while there are still
secrets hidden in Charect House how close is tragedy.

Not a book
to read alone late a night, creepy and at times terrifying, Sarah Rayne weaves
an intriguing tale with a chilling twist at the end. Highly recommended.

----

Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Sarah Rayne began
writing in her teens, and after a Convent education, which included writing
plays for the Lower Third to perform, embarked on a variety of jobs. Her first
novel was published in 1982, and since then she has written more than 20 books,
including eight psychological thrillers, which have met with considerable
acclaim, including the nomination to the long-list for the prestigious
Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year 2005 for Tower of Silence,
(originally published in 2003). In 2011, she embarked on a series of books with
a ghost-theme, featuring the antique dealer, Nell West, and the Oxford don, Michael
Flint, who first make their appearance in Property of a Lady.

Sunday, 29 July 2012

It is two in the morning
and Meg Langslow is feeding her four-month-old twin sons when she hears strange
noises from the living room of her house.Going downstairs to investigate, she finds her home has been turned into
a makeshift animal sanctuary.In order
to save money, the mayor has reversed the town's policy of running a sanctuary
with a 'no kill' policy.Meg's eccentric
grandfather, father and brother have spearheaded an action group to break into
the sanctuary and rescue the animals and now need sanctuary for a large
collection of domestic pets, including a rare and exceptionally foul-mouthed
macaw.Unfortunately, Parker Blair, the
man who had volunteered to transport the animals out of the county to safety
has not turned up.He has a good
excuse.

Parker
has been murdered.

Contrary
to her usual practice, Meg tries not to get involved in the investigation
because she is mindful of her duty to her babies.However clues present themselves and she
cannot ignore them.Meg soon discovers
that Parker was a womaniser with many lovers, but he was also a devoted worker
for animal welfare and an amateur investigator who has uncovered evidence that
the mayor's corrupt practices have brought the town to the verge of
bankruptcy.But which of these facets of
Parker's character have led to his murder?

As
well as looking after her babies and her five-year-old, long-term house guest,
Timmy, and investigating a murder, Meg has to battle to prevent her home from
being forcibly taken over by the corrupt administration, and help her
neighbours pack up the county's assets as the bank who lent the mayor money
takes over the civic buildings.Then, to
add to her stress, her grandfather is attacked and badly injured.That makes it personal.

The Real Macaw has just been released in
paperback.It is the thirteenth book
featuring Meg Langslow.All the books
have humorous titles featuring the name of a bird.(I think my favourite, most quirky title is The Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos.)In the first book in the series, Murder With Peacocks, Meg, a
professional blacksmith, meets Michael, an actor and drama teacher.The books follow their relationship, their engagement,
marriage and house buying, then the bravest move of all for a fictional female
sleuth, having children.

The Real Macaw is an excellent read. It
has a clever plot twist that is very satisfying. Also it is warm and funny and
totally engaging, filled with endearing and eccentric characters, including
Meg's extensive, warm-hearted, enthusiastic and eccentric family; the
long-suffering and competent Chief of Police and, last but not least, Spike the
dog, alias the Small Evil One.

-----

Reviewer: Carol Westron

Donna Andrews is a
winner of the Agatha, Anthony, and Barry Awards, a Romantic Times Award for
best first novel, and two Lefty and two Toby Bromberg awards for funniest
mystery. She spends her free time gardening at her home in Reston, Virginia.

Carol Westron is a
successful short story writer and a core contributor to Women's Weekly.She also writes contemporary and historical
crime and is currently looking for an agent or publisher.An Adult Education teacher, Carol has always
maintained that writing and reading fiction is good for people and has spent
much of her career facilitating Creative Writing for disabled people.

Friday, 27 July 2012

The book covers a period from December 1944 through
to October 1969.The story is told by
five members of the same family.Although the book is split into sections, each section being written in
the first person by that family member, the time period in each section is not
chronological.Thus piecing together the
story is rather like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Although
murder is part of the story, it is in essence about relationships. In the
opening section it is September 1945 and we meet the two cousins, Nick and
Helena, in the house in Elm Street
Cambridge Massachusetts,
on the eve of change. Helena is off to Hollywood to be married
for the second time, and Nick is to travel to be reunited with her husband Hughes
who has been serving overseas. They console each other about living so far
apart with the promise that they will meet up every summer at their houses on
Martha’s Vineyard, and from then on most of the story takes place at Tiger
House on Martha’s Vineyard.

But neither
of their lives work-out as they had envisaged. Each time they meet up at Tiger
House, the glamour and sophistication is much in evidence, but below the
surface simmers, jealousy, infidelity and many secrets.When one summer, violence disrupts their reunion,
mistrust and suspicion arrive at Tiger House to fester unfettered among the already
complex passions that have grown up over the years.

The
overriding feeling is tension. In a way unlike many books the tension doesn’t
build up, it’s just there, right from the beginning tension smoulders behind
every conversation, at every meeting, it is almost tangible.The ending was, gripping and unexpected.

This is an
amazing debut. Complex and well plotted, I cannot wait to see where Liza
Klausssmann takes us next.

-----

Lizzie
Hayes

Liza Klaussmann
worked as a journalist for the New York Times for over a decade. She received a
BA in Creative Writing from Barnard
College, where she was
awarded the Howard M. Teichman Prize for Prose. She lived in Paris
for ten years and she recently completed with distinction an MA in Creative
Writing at Royal Holloway, in London,
where she lives. She is the great-great-great granddaughter of Herman Melville.

Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Psychologist Alice Quentin is approached by DCI Don Burns of Southwark police to
visit Morris Cley who is being released from prison the next day owing to a
technicality. What Burns wants to know is how much of a threat to
society is Morris Cley.

A few days
later running off a difficult telephone conversation with her boyfriend Sean,
who is making her feel suffocated, Alice finds a body at Crossbones Yard, now a
waste ground partially cleared, which was the site of Crossbones Cemetery where
over a thousand prostitutes where buried between the 1850’s and 1994.

Later DCI
Don Burns contacts Alice
to look at the body as he says the wounds are similar to those on the victims
of the murders committed by Ray and Marie Benson and he suspects Morris Cley. Cley’s mom was close friends with Ray and Marie Benson who had
killed 13 women before they were caught, tried and imprisoned. Five of their
victims were never found.Then Don Burns brings in DS Alvarez, the
bad-tempered detective whom Alice had met the night she found the body, a man
with a permanent scowl, who feels that Alice maybe able to help.

In the
midst of this Alice
is dealing with her brother Will who is bi-polar and lives in a van in her
drive, refusing to move into the house. Will is unpredictable alternating
between docility and violent episodes.Into this uncomfortable situation arrives her friend the actress Lola
who despite being exotic and excitable seems to be able to calm Will.

Soon the letters start and then another body - someone Alice
knows, so is the killer someone close to Alice?

The book is beautifully written with many atmospheric descriptions of London. Alice is an interesting character with
issues, the history of which is slowly revealed to the reader as the book
progresses.This is a fast paced
compelling story that has a stunning climax that left me reeling. I just didn’t
see it coming.Put this on your ‘must
read’ list.

----

Lizzie
Hayes

Kate Rhodeswas born in London. She has a PhD in modern American
literature and has taught English at British and American universities. She
spent several years working in the southern states of America, first in Texas,
then at a liberal arts college in Florida.
Kate is currently writing full-time and lives in Cambridge with her husband Dave Pescod, a
writer and film maker. Crossbones Yard is Kate’s first
crime novel. The second novel in the Alice Quentin series, A Killing of Angelswill
be published in June 2013. www.katerhodes.org

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

The killing of Joey McCarthy in a parking lot has remained an unsolved
crime put down to a random an act of violence.

Four years later with
the death of her mother from cancer, and within a short space of time the
suicide of two friends, Charlotte Stone’s life is disintegrating so she tries
to reconcile her brother Matt with her Dad.

The report of a
missing housemate brings DC Gary Goodhew to the home of seven housemates, a mix
of first-year students attending Anglia
Ruskin University.
While some of the housemates grew up together like Matt and Libby, others are
strangers, with Shanie from Indiana in the USA, and Gunvald from Oslo. Interviewing each of the housemates Gary
learns the identities of the two suicides which bring back deeply buried
memories, and take him into the orbit of Charlotte Stone. Together they begin
to question if these tragedies could be linked.This in turn confronts them with the possibility that the suicides were
orchestrated, and if so who is next?

There are multiple third person narratives, interspersed
with emails from Libby to a friend called Zoe – these email narratives provide
a background to the suicides and the lives of the house mates.The exploration of these relationships is a
powerful part of the story, and as Gary
investigates surprising information emerges, but nothing prepared me for the
ending.

Complex and well-plotted, this entry in the series is highly recommended.

----

Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Earlier
books in the series are, Cambridge Blue, The Siren, and The Calling

Alison Bruce moved
to Cambridge in
1998, where the DC Goodhew series is set.Prior to writing her crime series, Alison had studied in around
Cambridge researching for two non-fiction books, Cambridge Murders, and The
Billingtons, Death in the Family.

Saturday, 21 July 2012

Narrated by Sandra
Duncan.
Published by Whole Story Audio Books.(Full
and Unabridged)
ISBN: 978-1-47120-301-5
11 CD’s 12.5 Hours Playing Time.

In July 1954 following the filming of
Hitchcock’s Rear Window, three bodies
are found when the elaborate apartment set is dismantled. News of the killing is brought to London by the American
Detective Tom Doyle, who feels that they may be a link between these recent
killings to a series of murders 18 years before.Chief Inspector Archie Penrose recalls the
earlier murders in the summer of 1936, when Josephine Tey along with friends,
is in the resort of Portmeirion in Wales to celebrate her fortieth
birthday, and for a meeting with Alfred Hitchcock to talk about a possible film
deal for her book A Shilling for Candles.
As Archie Penrose tells the American detective Doyle, the resultant film Young and Innocent, although a success bore
as much likeness to Josephine’s book as did the title - Josephine had not been pleased.

The book
centres on that summer gathering in 1936.We meet the party of Hitchcock’s guests - a number of actors, including
Josephine’s friend the actress Marta Fox and her partner Lydia, also the
Motley sisters who have featured in previous books.We learn that Hitchcock has some unusual
plans to entertain the party, which proves to have unpleasant consequences.

The book is
evenly balanced between an absorbing mystery – and the lives of the characters,
as although in a short space of time three deaths occur, much of the book
explores the characters lives and their relationships with each other - rather
amazingly several of them come from Wales. Also, in this the fourth
book we learn more of Josephine’s love life on which she has now reached a
crossroads.

Beautifully written, the reader is sharply
aware of the pain Archie feels at the loss of Josephine, as this story is
written two years after Josephine’s death. I enjoyed the elements of the conversations
that touched on the matters of the day, such as the relationship of the Prince
of Wales with the American woman! But it is the slow peeling away of the
tangled emotions of the people involved that grips the reader and makes
compelling reading.

Sandra Duncan has a remarkable
range of voices.I loved particularly
her Archie Penrose, she made him sound as I imagined him, reassuring, strong
and interesting, which contrasted so well with Josephine’s rather clipped
Scottish accent.Her narration greatly
enhanced my enjoyment.

-----

Lizzie
Hayes

Nicola Upson was
born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and read
English at Downing College, Cambridge.
She has worked in theatre and as a freelance journalist, and is the author of
two non-fiction works, and the recipient of an Escalator Award from Arts
Council England.

Since discovering the work of Golden Age author
Josephine Tey/Gordon Daviot, she has developed a passion for the theatre and
literature of the period, and an admiration for those who wrote and performed
between

Monday, 16 July 2012

Jogging through London
near Buckingham Palace on his day off, Inspector John Carlyle
notices a young girl maybe nine or ten- years old sitting on a bench. On his
next circuit she is still there, as there is no one close to her, he approaches
her, but she does not understand English, so he calls it in.

This chance
encounter leads Carlyle to a child-trafficking ring that seems to be linked to
SO14, the Royal Protection Unit that polices Buckingham Palace.Carlyle had at one time been part of SO14, so
in investigating this lead he comes up against former colleagues, and they
don’t all have good memories of him.

His boss Superintendent
Carole Simpson gives him a limited time to investigate. Seeking the identity of
the young girl leads him to Ukrainian gangsters, but when further investigations
uncover possible links to members of the British aristocracy he knows that he
is operating on borrowed time. Carole has her own problems with her husband in
prison for fraud she is conscious that she can’t afford to put a foot wrong.
Indeed she is lucky to have retained both her job and position within the
police force.

I have
reviewed both the two earlier books in this series and this is well up to the
high standard of those earlier books.Carlyle is a great character in that he is just an ordinary guy doing a
job, but just occasionally he is superb.Although, all he wants is to put in a good
days work and then go home to his wife Helen and his daughter Alice, just
sometimes even though he doesn’t want to, and when no one is making him do anything,
he goes the extra mile.His passion for Danish
pastries is legendary.

The story
has both its tragic moments and many humorous ones, which is what life is made
up of, and makes the story so believable. As with the earlier books, which if you
haven’t yet read I urge you to do so, I read this in one sitting, unable to put
it down. This is a real page turner. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

----

Lizzie
Hayes

James Craigwas born in Scotland, but has lived and worked in London for thirty years.
He worked as a journalist for ten years and as a TV producer for five. He lives
in Covent Garden with his wife and daughter.

His earlier
books are London Calling and Never Apologise, Never Explain.

Friday, 13 July 2012

On the last weekend of
August, Nic Costa is sitting on a bench on the Garibaldi
Bridge in Rome with Agata Graziano, when he is
attracted by a commotion and sees a pyjama clad girl with blood on her sitting
next to a body on the ground, saying in English ‘Daddy’. The papers the next
day report the tragic accident of British academic Malise Gabriel who fell to
his death from a Rome
apartment.

But Nic Costa senses that something is wrong, and that this
is not a simple accident. The girl Mina brings to Nic’s mind a tragedy from
another age that of the long dead Beatrice Cenci who had been executed by the Vatican 1599 when she had avenged the sexual tyranny of
her parent. Although on holiday he gets
permission to visit the apartment of the building from which Malise Gabriel had
fallen.

Nic learns that the girl Mina was something of a prodigy,
but had never attended school being taught at home by both her parents. But the
son Robert three years older than Mina was somewhat wayward. After visiting the apartment with his
colleague Peroni, Inspector Falcone agrees to open a formal investigation. But the Gabriel family is less than
co-operative and Nic is sure they are hiding something.

Whilst both Peroni and Falcone have been struggling with the
investigation sometimes veering to, maybe it was as accident? Further revelations and the discovery by Nic
Costa of another body and all doubts are swept away. Then the investigation is
stepped up.

Atmospheric and mesmerizing the reader is drawn into a
present day story that has parallels with the past, but can we trust the past –
how much is truth and how much is myth? As the story unfolds the sudden surprising
twists make compelling reading, as eventually tragically the truth is unveiled.

The narration by Saul Reichlin added an extra dimension to a
marvellous book.

-----

Lizzie
Hayes

David Hewsonwasborn in
Yorkshire in 1953 and left school at the age of seventeen to work as a cub
reporter on one of the smallest evening newspapers in the country in Scarborough. Eight years later he was a staff reporter on
The Times in London,
covering news, business and latterly working as arts correspondent. He then worked
on the launch of the Independent and was a weekly columnist for the Sunday
Times for a decade before giving up journalism entirely in 2005 to focus
on writing fiction. He is the
bestselling author of nineteen books published in more than twenty languages.
His popular Costa contemporary crime series is now in development for a series
of movies in Rome.

For more information visit his web site http://www.davidhewson.com

Saul Reichlin gave up a career in Law to pursue his acting
dream. Since studying at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, he has
gone on to play a wide variety of roles in TV, theatre and film, including
featured performances in Inspector Morse, Miss Marple, Poirot
and many others. Noted for his deep, measured delivery, Saul's voice is ideal
for audiobook narration, where he has excelled, particularly with the works of
South African thriller writer Deon Meyer and crime novelist David Hewson. Saul
has twice won the prestigious CrimeFest Sounds of Crime Award: in 2008 for The
Seventh Sacrament by David Hewson and in 2010 for The Girl who Played
with Fire by Stieg Larsson. The award recognises excellence in the field
of audiobook narration.

Thursday, 12 July 2012

I read the earlier books by Robert Ludlum in
the 1970’s and by the time he wrote The
Bourne Identity I was a huge fan.But
following his death, although I was aware that Eric Van Lustbader was
continuing the series featuring Jason Bourne, I never felt any compunction to
read them. However, when The Bourne
Imperative was sent to me for review I decided to give it a go.

Jason
Bourne pulls a man from drowning in a lake.When the man surfaces he knows not who he is, or from whence he came. In
short he is a total mystery. But as when rescued he is bleeding from a gunshot
wound, Bourne is suspicious.

So keen to
seek her quarry is Mossad agent Rebekah, and to ensure that she finds him
Rebekah goes off the grid, resulting in her agency sending someone to find her,
and not in a nice way.

At
Treadstone in the US,
operatives, Peter Marks and Soraya Moore are still recovering from their last
mission, in which both of them were injured.In their absence Dirk Richards has been assigned to their team.A computer expert, neither Peter or Soraya
are drawn to him.But there are far more
evil men at large than Dirk Richards, as is revealed as the story unfolds. Tom
Brick who runs Politics as Usual. And
just how where doesMaceo Encarnacion
fit in?

Intrigue
within intrigue is how I would describe this book. No one trusts anyone, and
with good reason.What is scary is how
far the betrayal goes.This is no
bedtime story - it’s harsh, brutal and final. The real deal in spy stories.

-----

Lizzie
Hayes

Eric Van Lustbader’swas born and raised in Greenwich Village,
where he developed an interest in art as well as in writing. He lived
downstairs from the young Lauren Bacall and built orange-crate racers in Washington Square Park
with Keith and David Carradine. He is a graduate of Columbia College, with a
degree in Sociology, but his real education came much earlier at The City &
Country School where, as Mr. Lustbader, is fond of saying, “I learned all the
important lessons that would stay with me for life.”His first novel, The Sunset Warrior,
was published in 1975.Since then, he
has published more than twenty five best-selling novels, including The Ninja,
in which he introduced Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction's most beloved
and enduring heroes, continuing his exploits in five subsequent best-sellers.
His novels have been translated into over twenty languages. In 2003, he was
asked by Estate of the late Robert Ludlum to continue the series based on Jason
Bourne. The Bourne Legacy, published in 2004 continues and updates the
adventures of Robert Ludlum’s famous international assassin. Mr. Lustbader has
gone on to write five more Bourne novels, The Bourne Betrayal, The
Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception, The Bourne Objective, The
Bourne Dominion (July, 2011). In 2008, Mr. Lustbader wrote First
Daughter to wide acclaim. The novel features Jack McClure and Alli Carson,
Mr. Lustbader's first continuing characters since Nicholas Linnear and Jake
Maroc. The second novel in the series, Last Snow, was published in
January, 2010. The third novel in the series, Blood Trust, is
published in May, 2011. Eric Van Lustbader serves on the Board of Trustees and
is Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee of the City
& Country School
in Greenwich Village. He also tends his prized
collection of Japanese maples and beech trees (which have been written up in The
New York Times and Martha Stewart's Living). He is a Second-Level Reiki
master. He listens to music constantly and is ever on the lookout for new bands
and artists. He lives in New York State.

Friday, 6 July 2012

It is London
1840 and Liberty Lane Private Ivestigator is sipping champagne at a diplomatic
gathering. But Liberty
is not there in a purely social sense, but to carry out an assignment on behalf
of Mr Disraeli. All is going according
to plan until the appearance of her brother Tom Fraternity Lane.

Tom works
for the East India Company and has returned to England
unexpectedly, as he has been called to give evidence in the enquiry into the
murder of a wealthy merchant’s assistant, whose throat was cut on route to Bombay carrying a
consignment of jewels. Whilst Tom
disapproves of Liberty’s career as a Private
Investigator and seeks either to take her back to India or marry her-off to a
socially acceptable man – both actually, his discomfort in his position between
the East India Company and his friend Mr Griffiths, has him confiding in her.
When another murder takes place, against his better judgement Tom finds himself
embroiled in Liberty’s
determination to seek the truth of the situation. There is much political intrigue and dubious
dealings and in the course of her investigations Liberty finds herself crossing swords with an
old and most unpleasant enemy.

I liked Liberty enormously, also
her prickly independent friend and assistant Tabby. The methods employed by a
lady of her social standing to extract information I found fascinating. Like all good mysteries no one is quite what
they seem, and there is an unexpected twist at the end.

This is the fifth in the series featuring Liberty Lane, and I
will now make a point of reading the earlier books. Highly recommended.

-----

Lizzie
Hayes

Earlier
books in the series are: A Foreign
Affair, A Dangerous Affair, A Family Affair and When the Devil Drives.

Caro
Peacockhas another
identity. As Gillian Linscott she is the author of the award winning series
about the suffragette detective Nell Bray. There are eleven books in the series.
Caro lives near the Welsh Borders

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

On Tuesday 3rd July a huge crowd gathered
at Goldsboro Books at 23-25 Cecil
Court in the heart of book land
London to
celebrate Independent Booksellers Week. David Headley who hosted the event thanked everyone for supporting him and Goldsboro Books.
There were 50 authors present mingling among the many readers, agents and
publishers.

About Me

From an early age I have been a lover of crime fiction. Discovering like minded people at my first crime conference at St Hilda’s Oxford in 1997, I was delighted when asked to join a new group for the promotion of female crime writers. In 1998 I took over the running of the group, which I did for the next thirteen years.
During that time I organised countless events promoting crime writers and in particular new writers. But apart from the sheer joy of reading, ‘I actually love books, not just the writing, the plot or the characters, but the sheer joy of holding a book has never abated for me. The greatest gift of my life has been the ability to read'.